The television (TV) has become ubiquitous in modem society. As a result, a variety of services are being provided via TV. Many of these services are provided using a consumer premise component such as a set-top box that works in conjunction with the TV to provide the desired service. These consumer premise components enable standard television sets to receive video and/or audio signals transmitted over cable or satellite networks.
In conjunction with providing desired audiovisual services to consumers, consumer premise components also aid in maintaining a secure connection between the consumer and a transmitting entity by providing a descrambler or decoder unit, which unscrambles or decodes a signal carrying the desired programming. Unauthorized parties who do not have the consumer premise component will be unable to receive the audiovisual programming in an intelligible form.
However, the elements of the consumer premise components may readily become obsolete for a variety of reasons such as changing methods of encoding or the addition of new features and functions. Traditionally, the above-mentioned situations were remedied by providing authorized subscribers with a new consumer premise component containing an updated tuner/decoder unit designed to fully receive and translate the audiovisual programming signals transmitted by the signal provider. However, this solution is both expensive and time consuming, especially if authorized subscribers are widely spread over a large geographic region.
Alternatively, recent methods for solving the obsolescence of the elements of the consumer premise component have included manufacturing the consumer premise components to accept upgrade modules. While this method often eliminates the need for providing consumers with updated decoders, traditional upgrade modules have required specialized tools to perform the installation. Consequently, traditional upgrade modules have necessitated installation by a specialized installation/repair person performing a temporally expensive and inefficient house call.